Why so Suspicious?!

This whole blog I have been explaining the reasons behind some superstitions, and in some cases disproving them. However, what I have not looked at was why people believe the myths that they do, where do they come from and why are they so widely accepted?  While many people do believe that some supernatural phenomena are real, almost all of us recognize that at least much of the time these superstitions aren't really valid.
But if they aren't valid, why do people believe them? Part of the reason seems to be just because other people tell them these things are true. Most superstitions have been around for many generations. Sometimes practically everybody with the same cultural background believes them. If the claims aren't true, why don't people recognize that they are false and stop passing them on?
One reason seems to be that superstitions are generally vague enough that no particular case will ever be clearly false. Many superstitions involve getting good or bad luck. Since we don't know what form that luck will take, or what would have happened if we didn't have the luck, there is no way to be sure the prediction was false.
Superstitious people also are very good at finding excuses for why things didn't work out as expected. They can easily imagine other magical effects that might cancel or modify the superstition. If the evil eye didn't seem to bother them, maybe it was because somebody said the right prayer or some charm warded off the effect.
Since there usually isn't a time limit on when the effects of a superstition will take place, we can often assume that the effect just hasn't happened yet. Eventually we will forget that anything was supposed to happen.
Occasionally, however, there will be cases where the expected effect of the superstition does come true. Somebody will be carrying that rabbit's foot when they win at the casino, or some child will contract a serious disease after some strangely behaving woman might have cast a witch's spell on him. Not only will this reinforce the superstition for the people involved, the story is likely to be passed around, reinforcing it for many others.

The bottom line is that superstitions are so accepted because they are either vague and can happen anywhere, or they can be easily explained and are widely accepted. My question for you is….do you continue to be one of the blind masses, or will you use your inherent lizard brain and explain the phenomenon?!

Watch out for that Ladder

Many people hold the belief that it is bad luck to walk under a ladder, without knowing exactly why they believe it is bad. Some people believe that its bad because the ladder will fall on you. The origin of this superstition lies in religion. This superstition arises from early Christian teachings that an object with three points represents the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Though not all Christians are Trinitarians many of them follow this superstition.

The early superstitious people thought that to walk under a ladder, which is to say through the Holy Trinity, expresses disbelief in the trinity and that one is in league with Satan. Performing such an act, especially in early Christian times, could have gotten one labeled as a witch. Thus it could be extremely dangerous to walk under a ladder.
A straight ladder, when leaning against a building does form a triangle. The top point connects with the building, the building intersecting with the road forms one corner and the bottom of the ladder makes the third corner. Throughout history, the number three has held extreme symbolic power, representing the masculine or as Carl Jung called it, the animus.

Even though the number three and the trinity are closely combined, use of three to represent symbolic importance dates far prior to Christianity. Though today to walk under a ladder is tied to Christian beliefs, it is quite possible that earlier beliefs may have held sway prior to the advent of Christianity. Early ladders predate Christianity.

Oh No Mommy!

I have always wondered where the rhyme: Step on a crack, break your mother back, came from.  I wasn’t prepared for what I found out. When I looked it up, this is what one web site told me:

Ill-fortune is said to be the result from stepping on a crack in the pavement. Present day society usually associates the superstition behind treading on cracks to the rhyme: "Step on a crack, break your mother's back" but the superstition actually goes back to the late 19th - early 20th Century and the racism that was prevalent in this period.

The original rhyming verse is thought to be "Step on a crack and your mother will turn black." It was also common to think that walking on the lines in pavement would mean you would marry a black and have a black baby. (Apparently this superstition only applied to Caucasians and because of the rampant prejudice against black people, was considered an activity to avoid.) 

Stepping on cracks also had significance for children. In the mid-20th Century it was popular to tell children that if they stepped on the cracks in the street, they would be eaten by the bears that congregate on street corners waiting for their lunch to walk by.

Also, the number of lines a person would walk on corresponded with the number of china dishes that the person would break, later in the day. 

Only in the last few decades has the rhyming superstition resurfaced to be the recognized "step on a crack, break your mother's back" and in some areas, two superstitions above are melded together to include the number of lines one steps on will correspond with the number of your mother's bones that are broken.

So now I see that a rhyme that many have playfully chanted during childhood has such a racial beginning. All of our children chant this not knowing that they are chanting something with such bad origins. 

When I chanted this I only worried about what would happen to my mom, not the implications it would have on my baby’s race. 

http://www.csicop.org/superstition/library/cracks.html

Can an Apple a Day Really Keep the Doctor Away...

 It's one of the most recognizable expressions around: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." But besides the fact that it rhymes, which makes it fun to say and easy to recall, does it really have any value? Could the common apple honestly help a person to maintain perfect health? "Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread." Nearly 150 years later, variations of this adage are still quoted. It's unlikely that the saying would have maintained such popularity if there wasn't some truth to it, right

If all fruits are nutritional powerhouses, why are apples the only one to be included in the folklore? At the time the adage emerged, apples were easy to grow (and still are). Once harvested, they could remain in storage for nearly a year. Recent studies have shown that, unlike many fruits and vegetables, the nutritional benefits of apples remain relatively stable as long as 200 days after harvest [source: Boyer and Liu].

An apple a day can reduce the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and many types of cancer. But would you be able to avoid the doctor entirely just by eating a bunch of the forbidden fruit? Not likely. Various studies show health benefits when participants eat an apple between three and five times a week, but all ailments cannot be cured by diet alone.

While an apple a day will go a long way toward keeping the doctor away, most nutritionists recommend a varied diet. In addition to apples, fill your shopping cart with citrus fruits, tropical treats like mangos, and a variety of berries, which pack a nutritional punch. Eating several servings of a varied selection of fruits each day is truly the best way to keep the doctor away.

DON'T SWALLOW THAT GUM!!

Your mom told you a million times not to do it. You did it anyway. Did it really sit in your stomach for seven years? Could it possibly have wrapped around your intestines and strangled them? Is a gum tree still growing inside you? What really happens if you swallow your gum?

We've all heard the old wives tale warning of such disaster, but to our knowledge there's been no serious health issues related to swallowing it (choking on gum is another matter, though.)

Though your stomach can't break down a piece of gum the same way it breaks down other food, your digestive system can move it along through normal intestinal activity (in other words, it comes out the other end.)

Wrigley, one of today's top leading gum manufacturer's, explains, "Chewing gum has five basic ingredients - sweeteners, corn syrup, softeners, flavors and gum base (the part that puts the "chew" in chewing gum). The first four ingredients are soluble, meaning they dissolve in your mouth as you chew. Gum base doesn't. And although it isn't meant to be swallowed, if it is, it simply passes through your system, just like popcorn or any other form of roughage." It starts traveling down your esophagus, into your stomach, enters the small intestine, and makes its way to the large intestine. This normally takes only a few days.

I know I’ve always swallowed my Gum anyway, but it is good to know I don’t have a great wall of Gum building in my stomach.

Knock On Wood...

People often knock on wood when they make a statement which seems to tempt fate. The idea is that knocking on wood will ward off evil spirits. Superstitions surrounding evil spirits are ancient, and the idea of touching wood to avoid them is also quite old. Many people in Northern Europe and North America knock on wood so reflexively that they do not even realize that they are doing it, showing how ingrained the tradition is in these cultures.

In most cases, it is believed that one must literally knock on wood to deflect bad luck.Usually, people rap on wood with a closed fist, creating a rapping noise like knocking on a door. In other cases, people may say “knock on wood” or “touch wood” after making a potentially risky statement such as “it doesn't look like rain today.”

The exact origins of the tradition are unclear. In many pagan traditions, fairies and other creatures were said to live in the trees. In these instances, people might knock on wood to request good luck, or to distract spirits with evil intentions. This idea may have been adapted by Christians, as many early pagan beliefs were, and certainly some people associate knocking on wood with the Cross. Pieces of wood or the true cross may be carried around for good luck by some people as well. It is also believed that evil spirits can not enter churches and so most churches having wood, people would knock before entering, thus warding off the evil spirit.

All I know is that it wards off bad luck and so far it has Worked so warding off bad omens or not, I m still gonna do it, because lets face it as a college student….I need all the Luck I can get!!!

 1800s, the, and British. "What Does it Mean to "Knock On Wood"?."wiseGEEK: clear answers for common questions. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-it-mean-to-knock-on-wood.htm>.

7 Years Bad Luck

We’ve all heard that if you break a mirror you get 7 years bad luck…here’s why:

Myths regarding mirrors have been around since the ancient times of civilizations. Mirrors were once believed to show a soul’s reflection. A baby seeing its own reflection would mean that it would see its own death. This is because a baby’s soul was not fully developed. In popular legend, a vampire would not be able to see its own reflection. That was because vampires were already dead and so a soul would never show itself.

The beginning origins of the "broken mirror" superstition can be traced during the time of the ancient Roman and Greek societies when the art of catoptromancy (reading the future using mirrors) was quite popular. The skill behind catoptromancy was the taking of human perception as seen in a mirror and predicting a person's future. It was related to another future - seeing pseudo-science known as palmistry, which is the reading of the human hand in order to predict that person’s future.

Additionally, at one point in the glorious history of the ancient city - state of Rome, making mirrors was a work of art like that of the buildings and statutes that represented the gods and goddesses. So breaking mirrors would be a huge offense.

Ancient European attitudes were passed on to other cultures and countless generations. For example, during the 17th century in European Society, it was said that if a person drops and breaks a mirror, that is a representation of seven years bad luck onto that person. The ancient Greeks believed something which can be added to the mystic surrounding the broken mirror superstition. And that was whenever a person’s future was being gazed upon, if it was bad, a shattered mirror would represent the gods or goddesses way of not allowing a person to see into a terrible fate which waits.

What's more, seven years bad luck is attributed to the ancient Roman religious belief in the changes of the human health cycles via seven years. Thus, when a person breaks a mirror, one of the health cycles is left undone. The consequence is bad health for at least seven years. In addition to that, the health cycles all combine to form the human soul. So it can be stated that this person has a damaged soul.

But have no fear there is a cure! There is a way to break the bad luck spell. To break it, you must wait several hours before picking up the broken pieces. Each of these pieces of broken glass represents one bad luck year. Next, bury the pieces outside in the moonlight to finish the bad luck-riding task.

I believe that this is another myth…Busted!